The Obama Administration isn't waiting until the Senate confirms a director to head the new Consumer Finance Protection Bureau to begin implementing "the most significant financial reform legislation since the Great Depression."
"Time is short," Peggy Twohig, director of the Treasury Department's Office of Consumer Protection Office, told state mortgage industry supervisors at their annual meeting in St. Louis. "We have a lot of work to do. We only have 12 months to get the CFPB off the ground. We don't have too much time to catch our breath."
Twohig, who spent 17 years at the Federal Trade Commission, where she was associate director in the Division of Financial Practices, before moving to Treasury last year, promised the American Association of Residential Mortgage Regulators that the White House would work closely with the states in carrying out the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.
"We will be reaching out to the states," the Treasury Department official said. "You have a huge knowledge base, and we're well aware of that."
State regulators have jealously guarded their role as consumer protectors and have been loathe to abdicate that function to the federal government. "Consumers are our reason for being; it's the whole point to why we're here," said David Bleicken, deputy secretary of banking for non-depository institutions and consumer services in Pennsylvania.
"The difference between the states and the federal government is that if you complain to your state, you will get something in response," said Bleicken, a past AARMR president. "Hopefully the CFPB will change that."
Twohig suggested that AARMR create a liaison committee to pass on ideas and suggestions from it members. "Because we have so much to do," she said, "one of the challenges will be what to do first, second, third and so on. We can only do so much; we're still only a handful of people."
It's anticipated that the White House will name Harvard law professor, and current TARP watchdog Elizabeth Warren to head the agency. Assistant Treasury secretary Michael Barr also has been mentioned as a candidate for the job.
